Josephine is a middle-aged woman with two daughters (Zoe, 10 years old and Hortense, a rebellious teenager fast becoming a woman), an unemployed husband (Antoine), a stuck up older sister married to a rich man (Iris) and an abandoned academic career in medieval history. Living in a Parisian suburb, she’s struggling to pay the bills and keep her family together when she discovers that Antoine is having an affair with a local hairdresser.

Frustrated and feeling taken advantage of, she throws him out, but then has to deal with her teenager’s rebellious hostility. Antoine deceives her into co-signing a large loan and goes off to Africa with his mistress to raise crocodiles (hence the book’s title) for the Chinese market. He fails miserably.

Meanwhile, trying to shore up her own disintegrating marriage, Iris boasts that she’s writing a novel and when pressed by a publisher she improvises a setting and plot with details stolen from conversations with Josephine about French medieval history. To save face when the publisher wants to read it, she cajoles Josephine into writing the book for her: Josephine will get all the money, but Iris will be the public face and get the credit. Josephine agrees only because she needs the large advance to pay back the loan Antoine has defaulted on.

While doing research Josephine meets a handsome young man at the library, but can’t bring herself to believe she’s attractive enough to interest him. Naturally, Josephine discovers she’s got real talent and the book turns into a huge success, especially with the beautiful and frivolous Iris lapping up the media attention. Josephine agonizes over being the neglected Cinderella while Iris enjoys the ball.

There’s a lot more plot and many other characters swirling about as all this unfolds: several unhappy marriages and romantic affairs, private detectives shadowing spouses, parents and children falling out, disguises, secrets, betrayals, exotic and exclusive locations — and even real princes and princesses. Of course it all has a happy ending where the nasty characters get what’s coming to them and Josephine ends up besting her obnoxious older sister.

Pancol’s writing is light and fluffy and her plot and characters are re-warmed clichés, but all these elements are seamlessly woven together. Her clean and sharp declarative prose wastes no time and never interferes with the narrative drive; even the unlikeable characters are portrayed with sympathy, and the focus never wavers. It’s true that Pancol pulls a few rabbits from hats to resolve everything. The most glaring example is when Antoine’s fate takes place completely off stage and is only revealed when his mistress, of all people, brings Josephine the news. And she occasionally withholds important information from the reader to create suspense. But it’s pointless to find fault with a story that makes no claims on realism or believability.

This book is a romantic romp, a bestseller in its native France that’s already sold millions of copies in dozens of languages. It’s very slick chick lit of the Bridget Jones variety, with a decidedly Parisian accent. It’s not a book men will want to read, but it would make a great date movie.

Michel Basilières teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto’s School Of Continuing Studies.

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